Sound recordist from the Netherlands

[Bill White]

Found this on RAMPS the other day...

First go to his HARDWARE page and click around his kit for details.

That is clever.

For a real laugh, be sure to check out his Others About Me link as well.

Obviously a man with a great sense of humour.

Check out this sound recordist...

NB: The site takes 30 seconds to load before you can click on a small icon.

Regards,

Bill

[Stuart Waller]

I checked it out. Very funny. Great idea. Have a look fella's.

[Rainier Davenport]

Great! Very funny and informative.

[Martijn Scholte]

Hi Bill,

so cool to see that people like it :) thanks so much for posting this.

cheers

martijn

p.s. "the others about me" will expand rapedly since im asking others to do this for me and they mostley help me out :)

[Bill White]

Hi Martijn,

My pleasure. Good to see you on Aussie Sound.

Your website is technically brilliant. In difficult times for the industry, good to see you sharing your wicked sense of humour.

Not often that I get a laugh from ramps. Well done!

Best regards,

Bill White

PS. Say hello to the guys at Noyz Boyz for me (I'm the Audio Ltd guy in Oz)
http://microphonemagic.tv

[Martijn Scholte]

will do. i have a question i have a hankwoods power distribution sys. dvlink. i also got 2 of their battery's but one has a little plastic cap that can be removed exposing 2 contacts + and -. i wonder what i can hook up to that?

cheers
martijn
i once rented a battery holder that could hook up 2 DV-F970L's one on both sides, (4 hirose out) and i order that one from noyz boyz but when i pickt my order up they told that that model was not good and i got one where i could only hook up one DV-F970L. your thoughts on this greatly app.

[Bill White]

Marttijn wrote:
i have a hankwoods power distribution sys. dvlink. i also got 2 of their battery's but one has a little plastic cap that can be removed exposing 2 contacts + and -. i wonder what i can hook up to that?

Hello again Martijn,
Being a wireless mike specialist, battery matters are marginally outside my area of expertise.
While both Hawk-Woods and Audio Ltd are in the UK and both cater for our industry, they are otherwise independent companies. When you say you have two batteries and one has a plastic cap that can be removed, are these NP-F batteries? I don’t understand why one only would have a cap concealing the contacts or are they from different manufacturers? Some manufacturers add additional contacts to their batteries to facilitate special functions. For example, some chargers compensate for battery temperature during charging and they sense this via auxiliary contacts connecting to a temperature sensing thermistor inside the battery pack. Some battery makers bring internal connections out so they can sense the voltage of individual cells and compensate for imbalances. As a general rule, only two contacts are available to consumers. The ubiquitous NP-1 may have many more contacts but you should NEVER use them as there are more likely there for the benefit of the battery charger logic.

On that thread, I was on a reality shoot once where they used Anton Bauer camera batteries mixed with another brand. If you plugged the Anton Bauer batteries into the wrong charger, it would stuff up the battery condition indicator which would then indicate the battery was flat. This was misleading as the battery was actually charged. It caused massive confusion as no one knew which batteries really were flat. We put up large signs warning crew not to put AB batteries in non-AB chargers, but people don’t read signs.
To fix the problem, we had to put the Anton Bauer batteries through three or more charge/discharge cycles in the Anton Bauer chargers to clear the internal logic. This took ages to accomplish and the shoot looked remarkably like a Chinese Fire Drill for days.
Have not had so much fun since the day we received a shipment of Ultralife PP3 that have been left in the burning sun on a Fijian dockside for a week. We discovered this after doing a routine wireless mike battery change 30 minutes before a live show.
Now that is the sort of fun and frivolity that only live reality TV can provide ;-)

As a general rule, it is good advice and practise to never connect anything to a battery other than via the recommended cup or container. Using only the companion charger may also be good advice.

i once rented a battery holder that could hook up 2 DV-F970L's one on both sides, (4 hirose out) and i order that one from noyz boyz but when i pickt my order up they told that that model was not good and i got one where i could only hook up one DV-F970L. your thoughts on this greatly app.

Not 100% sure on this… but imagine that device (can't see it on the Hawk-Woods site) might have connected the batteries in parallel to double capacity while maintaining the original voltage (7.2volts?).

There is great potential for problems using this design philosophy. If one battery is flat, the current from the superior battery may cause an inrush flow that could damage either or both. Some believe that adding power Schottky diodes will prevent that problem. Even Schottky diodes add a small voltage loss and diodes can make great broadband noise generators. Unless you specifically address these problems, you may be creating yet more problems than you solve.

On a slightly different tack… I was a specialist on racing yacht communications for over a decade. Most waterborne craft have two batteries. One for crank starting the diesel, the other for domestic power, lights, radio, bilge pumps, etc.

To isolate the batteries, and ensure that you never flattened the engine crank battery (it’s really difficult to push start a yacht ;-) electricians would invariably add a DIODE BLOCK so that the alternator would charge both batteries. The diodes prevented any current flowing from the cranking battery to the domestic supply. Unfortunately, while this worked in theory, unless you modified the alternator’s voltage regulator to compensate for the voltage drop across the diode block, neither battery would ever fully charge under normal conditions. What started off as the concept that you could not flatten your cranking battery actually created a situation where both batteries would be flat unless you ran your engine 12 hours a day.

Strangely, marine electricians never saw the irony in my comments about them having converted a yacht into a motor boat.
Must be my wry Scottish humour I guess?

Regards,

Bill White

[Rainier Davenport]

Hello Bill,
Are you a distributor of Noyz Boyz, as the product 'The Snapper' looks pretty interesting. Its a method of using little clips to hide a mic in hair.

[Bill White]

Will speak to you off-line about that.

Regards,

Bill

[Peter Mega]

Rainier,
I have made the "HairClix", See attached photos.
They are $6 each + postage and come in black, brown, light brown and white.
Let me know if your interested.
Peter Mega

[Rainier Davenport]

This guy wasn't real impressed,

On Jun 30, 8:58 pm, Josh wrote:
"Snappers"... they are called toupee clips and you can buy a bag full
> of them for what these people are charging for 2. I really hope this
> is a joke site despite the fact that the paypal screens look legit.
> under a 1.50 here.http://www.hairdirect.com/store/Clips.aspx?gclid=CN28kZ7gspsCFSMSagod...

Bugger... I've been had. (I bought a pair from soundkit.co.uk at the
equivalent of $35...).
FYI, for anyone considering buying these 'ready made' ones from
Noyztoyz, the first pair I received were broken (a rivet had snapped
in the mail [I'm giving them the benefit of the doubt that it wasn't
during manufacture...]) & the elastic they've used leaves two little
knots on the 'head side' of the clip that are quite
uncomfortable....
I was thinking of modifying them, but now I'll just buy some of these
toupe clips & make some up myself. (Hell, perhaps I can even sell
them back to Sound Kit at a profit! ;-) )
Thanks for the link Josh,
Jason